Designing and Fabricating Self-Leveling Quadcopter

Undergraduate #341
Discipline: Technology and Engineering
Subcategory: Civil/Mechanical/Manufacturing Engineering

Miguel Powell - J.F. Drake State Community and Technical College
Co-Author(s): Robert 'Bob' Grissim, J.F. Drake State Community and Technical College, Huntsville, AL

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A quadcopter, is a multi-rotor helicopter that is lifted and propelled by four rotors. Early in the history of flight, quadcopter configurations were seen as possible solutions to some of the persistent problems in vertical flight; torqueinduced control issues as well as efficiency issues originating from the tail rotor, which generates no useful lift. The first rotary wing aircraft to lift itself off the ground, was a four rotor helicopter designed by French brothers Jacques and Louis Breguet. A number of manned designs appeared in the 1920s and 1930s. These vehicles were among the first successful heavier-than-air vertical takeoff and landing vehicles. However, early prototypes suffered from poor performance, and latter prototypes required too much pilot work load, due to poor stability augmentation and limited control authority. More recently quadcopter designs have become popular in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) research. These vehicles use an electronic control system and electronic sensors to stabilize the aircraft. The methods used for this research were SolidWorks to design the model and 3D print parts. We now have a computerized design model that we can continually try to build on to improve the models performance. Due to failed attempts with a 3D printer, we were unable to fabricate the copter project. The current focus is to find a way to produce a physical product to advance the quality and make improvements of this quadcopter. Future work will include producing a physical model of quadcopter, testing for faults in design, and improving the design.

Funder Acknowledgement(s): This work was supported, in part by: NSF GA-AL LSAMP Grant #1305041.

Faculty Advisor: Robert Grissim, tomeka.cross@drakestate.edu